


beside you love, any way the wind blows

by lilibetpride



Series: klance as percabeth [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus) Spoilers, keith as annabeth, kind of you'll see, lance as percy, trigger warning for suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilibetpride/pseuds/lilibetpride
Summary: Keith pressed his lips to Lance’s ear, struggling to move in his deathly grip. He could feel the hot tears falling from his eyes, just like Lance’s. “I love you.” he croaked out.Lance probably didn’t hear him with the wind filling their ears. But Keith knew that if they were about to die, those were the last words he wanted to say.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: klance as percabeth [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454722
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	beside you love, any way the wind blows

**_Why the struggle, why the strain?_ **

**_Why make trouble? Why make scenes?_ **

**_Why go against the grain?_ **

**_Why swim upstream?_ **

**_It ain't, it ain't, it ain't no use_ **

**_You're bound, you're bound, you're bound to lose_ **

**_What's done, what's done, what's done is done_ **

**_That's the way the river runs_ **

As he fell, Keith thought of Hesiod, the Ancient Greek poet who speculated it would take nine days to fall from Earth to Tartarus. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been falling for. Hours, maybe even a day. He hoped Hesiod was wrong, he knew neither of them could possibly fall for nine days without either dying or going totally insane. 

He already felt his grip on reality failing him. He had already gone through the English, Korean and Greek alphabet four whole times, and counted until the numbers slipped away from him. He tried to think of the Twelve Labors Heracles had done, but he forgot whether Diomedes’ mares were four or five, and decided to leave it for the moment being. 

As if sensing his sudden distress, Lance switched from holding his hand to pulling him close, burying his nose on Keith’s hair. He held Lance tight, trying to think of them. He couldn’t see anything, but in his mind he could picture his face perfectly, handsome and tired, full of love and admiration, just like his own. 

Wind whistled in Keith’s ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon. His recently broken ankle throbbed, though he couldn’t tell if it was still wrapped in spiderwebs.

That cursed monster Arachne. Despite having been trapped in her own webbing, smashed by a car and plunged into Tartarus, the spider lady had got her revenge. Somehow her silk had entangled Keith’s leg and dragged him over the side of the pit, with Lance in tow. He couldn’t imagine that Arachne was still alive, patiently waiting for their fall. Keith knew he wouldn’t survive another encounter with the giant spider. 

He kind of knew they wouldn’t survive the fall either. 

Keith felt the sob choke him. Life wasn’t easy for demigods, but this was by far the worst way to die he could possibly imagine. Where was his mother now? Losing her mind somewhere above, probably, not even realizing his only son to survive Arachne and rescue her statue was now falling with his boyfriend to the most dangerous place in the world. 

His mother may have not be watching him, but Gaia certainly was, laughing at them. She let them reunite after months just to ripped the little happiness they had from them. Greeks invented tragedy, but Gaia was far more twisted than any god they had ever encountered. 

Keith pressed his lips to Lance’s ear, struggling to move in his deathly grip. He could feel the hot tears falling from his eyes, just like Lance’s. “I love you.” he croaked out. 

Lance probably didn’t hear him with the wind filling their ears. But Keith knew that if they were about to die, those were the last words he wanted to say. 

They had been through so much, together and alone, just to end up like that. He tried to come up with something, _anything_ to get save them from being flattened on the impact. 

He was seriously wondering whether they could fashion a parachute out of their shirts – that’s how desperate he was – when something about their surroundings changed. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. He realized he could see Lance’s hair as he hugged him. The whistling in his ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute they’d been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below them, Keith could see the bottom. For a moment he was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern – and he couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape – at least what he could see of it – was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Keith’s left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid – a river. 

The realization hit him. 

“Lance!” he yelled in his ear. “Water!”

Lance’s face was hard to read in the dim red light. He looked shell-shocked and terrified, but he nodded as if he understood Keith’s frantic gestures.

Thank to the Gods, Lance could control water – _assuming_ that _was_ water below them. He might be able to cushion their fall somehow. Keith thought briefly about the stories of the Underworld’s rivers, how they could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But in the moment of pure fear, he decided to ignore it. 

The river hurtled towards them. At the last second, Lance yelled defiantly, holding onto Keith’s hand with a deathly grip. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed them whole.

  
  
  


Keith didn’t die from the impact, but the cold was surely trying to kill him. 

Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he lost his grip on Lance as he began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled his ears – millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. He felt as if the voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.

 _What’s the point of struggling?_ A voice – or maybe all the voices – told him. 

‘ _What’s the point?_ ’ Keith felt himself agree. 

_You’re dead anyway_. ‘ _Am I?_ ’ _You’ll never leave this place._ Oh, yeah, that sounded right. 

He could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry him away. He just needed to close his eyes for a while anyway…

Lance gripped his hand and jolted him back to reality. He couldn’t see him in the murky water, but suddenly he remembered he didn’t want to die. Together they kicked upward and broke the surface.

Keith gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulfurous. The water swirled around them, and he realized Lance was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up. Though he couldn’t make out their surroundings, he knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.

“Land.” he croaked. He felt his throat burning. “Go sideways.”

Lance looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but not this water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Keith hooked one arm around his waist and struggled across the current. The river worked against him: thousands of weeping voices whispering in his ears, getting inside his brain.

 _Life is despair_ , they said. _Everything is pointless, and then you die_. 

‘ _I_ _ll die here_.’ Keith’s brain supplied. ‘ _Let’s rest for a minute. Maybe five_.’ He tried to swallow down his own thoughts. 

“Pointless.” Lance murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink.

“Lance! No!” Keith shrieked. He tightened his grip on Lance’s waist, using his other hand to try and keep them afloat. Lance didn’t even struggle, eyes misty and unfocused. “The river is messing with our minds. It’s the River of Lamentation, made of pure misery!”

“Misery.” Lance agreed, not even looking at him, voice trembling.

“Fight it! Please!”

He kicked and struggled, trying to keep both of them afloat. Another cosmic joke for Gaia to laugh at: Keith dies trying to keep his boyfriend, the son of Poseidon, from drowning.

‘ _Fuck you_.’ Keith thought, hoping Gaia could hear his mind in that moment. 

He hugged Lance tighter and kissed him, trying hard to stay afloat. “Tell me about New Rome,” he demanded, choking on his own words. “What were your plans for us?”

“New Rome… For us…”

“Yeah, Blue. You said we could have a future there! Tell me!”

Keith had never wanted to leave Camp Half-Blood. It was the only real home he’d ever known, one where he never needed to run away. But days ago, on the Argo II, Lance had told him that he imagined a future for the two of them among the Roman demigods. In the city of New Rome, veterans of the legion could settle down safely, go to college, get married, even have kids. Keith never even dreamed of living to see his twenties, much less think of any kind of future. 

“You should’ve seen their swords.” Lance murmured. The fog started to clear from his eyes. “And they have a hairdresser, maybe they could save your hair from the mullet there.” 

“Fuck you.” Keith said, with the same tone one would say ‘ _I_ _love you with all my heart_ ’. “You said there’s a college there, we could go together.” 

He was finally making some kind of progress, as Lance stopped being a dead weight and started actually holding himself up. 

He hummed. “Together?” 

‘ _Just give up_.’ his brain provided. ‘ _Lance already did, why don’t you?_ ’.

“Together, like always.” Keith agreed. “What would you study?” 

“I… I didn’t think about it.” Lance said, shaking his head. He started moving in sync with Keith, sweat dripping down his face. 

“That’s okay.” He could see the shore now, the most unnatural black he ever saw. His body was burning, and he didn’t know if his face was wet from sweat, tears or the water. “Oceanography? Marine Science?”

“Surfing?” He asked. 

He laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Keith wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before – just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. He doubted it. Lance smiled, his eyes clear again. 

Keith opened his mouth and turned his face, ready to tell Lance to keep swimming.

Lance closed his eyes, the River pushing them back. _Down_. His fingers lost the hold on Lance’s shirt. He kicked around, desperately trying to find him again. His throat was burning, and he couldn’t swim up, like something was holding him down. 

_I’ll never leave you alone, little demigod._

He was sinking. 

_Wisdom's son walks alone_.

Keith tried to hold his breath, swinging his arms in an attempt to swim up, or find Lance. The voices in his mind screamed at him, begging him to stop moving and sink down, to let the air leave his lungs once and for all. Lance wasn’t there. 

Something was wrong.

“Keith!”

 _Wisdom’s son dies alone_.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

“Keith!”

  
  
  


He gasped, blinking awake. 

Lance hovered next to him, his hands resting on his shoulders. His face was white with worry. Keith tried to catch his breath, sitting up on the bed. His cheeks were wet with tears, and he felt his eyes burning.

“I… Gaia…” he tried to explain, the words choking him. He could see his hands shaking, and Lance seemed to do too, because he held them between his.

“It was just a dream, we’re safe now.” Lance said, voice soft, placing a kiss on top of his head. “She’s not gonna bother us anymore.”

Keith gripped Lance’s hands, the image of him slipping away clear as day on his mind. “How are you so sure?”

Lance stayed silent for a minute, then shrugged. “We kicked her ass so hard, she’s not coming back for a looong time.” his hand left Keith’s to cup his cheek, making him turn his head towards him. “Guess you just have to trust me.”

Keith looked at him. His hair was a mess, the dark circles under his sea-blue eyes were as prominent as ever. The months following the defeat of Gaia had been hard on them both, but while Keith’s dreams were plagued with memories of Tartarus, Lance barely even slept, instead staying up studying to catch up with his classes. 

In that moment, sleepy and wearing an AHS SWIM TEAM shirt, he looked so much like a normal teenager. Keith threw his arms around his shoulders, almost making Lance fall off the bed. Lance returned the hug, burying his face on Keith’s hair. 

“I trust you.” Keith croaked out. He could feel Lance hum, his hand drawing circles on his back. “Is it early?” 

“I was already up.” Lance answered, lifting his head up to talk properly. “Made you coffee and everything, though it’s probably gone cold by now.” 

“Just coffee?” 

“... I was making pancakes, too, I came to ask if you wanted chocolate chips or M&M’s.” 

Keith looked up, a smile forming on his face. “Can I have both?” 

Lance groaned theatrically. “You’re disgusting, I hope you know that.” He cupped his face as he said that, giving him a peck on the lips. His face turned soft, eyes cautious. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

He loved that about Lance. He never pushed him too hard, knew how difficult it was for Keith to open up sometimes. The smile disappeared as he sighed. “Just… Tartarus.” he closed his eyes. “We were falling, but then you just… disappeared.” 

He knew what it was like for Lance to disappear, Hera and the arai made sure of it. He hoped to never feel the hopelessness he felt in both of those situations. 

“I’m here.” Lance whispered, and Keith opened his eyes to watch him. “And we’re safe and together, that’s all that matters.” Lance kissed him, then, soft and gentle. 

They broke off, Keith resting his forehead on Lance’s. “I love you.” he said. “Thank you.” 

“No need to thank me, Mullet.” Lance smiled. “Now, let’s go have breakfast, I’m starving.” He got up, holding his hand up for Keith to grab. “We can take Mrs. O’Leary for a ride today, hm?” 

Keith took his hand, getting up from the bed too. “Don’t you have some studying to do?” 

Lance rolled his eyes. “I try to make time to take my beautiful boyfriend out on dates. Besides, next year we’re going to college and life will be pretty hectic.” he winked. “I think Disney World has plenty of shadows.” 

Keith raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Oh, and you think your boyfriend would approve of sneaking into Disney with the magic of a teletransporting dog?” 

“My boyfriend’s pretty awesome, I’m sure he would love to do some reckless stuff.” he opened the door of his bedroom, letting Keith pass first. “He would look pretty cute with red ears.” 

“I think I’ll go with my boyfriend too, then, he would rock the blue ones.” 

“It’s a date, then.” 

Keith laughed. It was kind of weird how easily they could switch between panic and pure happiness, but Keith knew that steamed from knowing how fleeting life was. They’d been through too much shit together to not make the most every situation. 

They’d been used by their parents and other gods, been stabbed both literally and figuratively, kidnapped, thrown into Hell and Tartarus, and still there they were, talking about pancakes and Disney like a normal couple, worrying over going to college next year. 

Lance put Keith’s cup on the microwave, like a fiend, and started making the pancakes. He turned his head around, watching Keith thoughtfully as he sat on the counter. 

“I forgot something.” 

“What?” 

Lance threw him a chocolate chip, which Keith caught with his mouth. He smiled fondly at him. “I love you too.” He crossed the kitchen, holding a bowl and a spoon in each hand, giving him a quick kiss. “Don’t want to owe you anything.” 

Keith laughed. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m obviously very late to Valentine’s Day, but I wanted to post this anyway. Title from the song Promises and beginning from Nothing Changes, both from Hadestown! (Go stream the album)


End file.
